Chapter 5 The invisible layers

The clock read 6:03 in the morning. Outside, the sky was beginning to turn a slate gray, and in the large windows of the 27th floor, the reflections inside seemed sharper than the real world.

Lucía stood alone in her floor's common room, feigning interest in a cup of lukewarm tea. Her shift had ended ten minutes ago, but she had nowhere else to go, and even less desire to pretend she did. The ritual of the first few days in a new unit was always the same: studying the surroundings. Memorizing faces, rhythms, unspoken hierarchies. Discovering the margins of power.

That's when she saw them.

It wasn't a large group, barely four people. They emerged from a door Lucía hadn't noticed before, an unmarked section with no visible cameras. They walked fluidly, almost in sync, as if they knew exactly where to go so as not to be observed. But they hadn't counted on her.

Lucía didn't look away. She pretended to be reading a report on her tablet, but her gaze followed them out of the corner of her eye. They were different. They dressed the same as everyone else-gray suits, impeccable shoes-but there was something in their bearing, in their gaze. They didn't speak to each other. Not a word. Not a gesture.

One of them-a woman with coiled black hair and a profile sculpted like marble-turned her head slightly. For an instant, their eyes met. It was barely a second. But it was enough.

Lucía felt the weight of that gaze like a needle. It wasn't hostile. It was... evaluative. As if she were being classified.

Lucía:

"They're not assigned to this floor. They don't belong to any visible operational team. And yet, they move with authority. Who protects them? Who needs them?"

Lucía knew that in a corporation like NCA, power didn't always come with visible titles. Sometimes, the real influence lay in the shadows: in the names that weren't spoken, in the positions that didn't appear on any organizational chart.

She sat back down. She feigned concentration. But in reality, her body was tense, on alert.

Hours later, in her sterile apartment, while she ate dinner in front of an Excel spreadsheet she didn't need to review, Lucía thought about them again. About their synchronicity. About the woman's slight turn of her head. About the unlabeled door.

"What if this isn't just a corporation? What if another kind of loyalty is at play here too? Bruno would know something. He knows the invisible corridors. He should ask. No. Not yet. Not enough."

But doubt had been planted. And with it, a new kind of danger: that of unsolicited knowledge.

The next morning, Lucía took a deliberate detour. She walked past the door where those employees had left. She paused for a second. No ID, no card slot. Just a smooth, black surface.

She sighed. She started walking again.

Meanwhile, behind a glass tinted from the inside, two eyes followed her silently.

When Lucía resumed her pace, her mind still caught on the image of that unmarked door, she didn't immediately realize she was being followed by an invisible camera. But she was.

In a dark room, set up for silent monitoring of employees of interest, two figures watched on a screen divided into quadrants. One of the quadrants showed Lucía's face in high resolution: steady gaze, clenched jaw, calculated steps.

"She's not where she should be," said the black-haired woman, without taking her eyes off the monitor.

"She's not acting like a newcomer either," replied her companion, a thin man with an ascetic expression and a voice lacking inflection.

They were two of the four Lucía had seen the previous afternoon. Now they were in another phase: observing, recording, measuring. Their conversation was sparse, precise, like a report written by mouth.

"Profile?" he asked.

"Organizational psychologist. Top tier. No external ties. High level of emotional self-control. Subject of interest."

"Risk?"

"Potential."

The woman slid her fingers over the touchscreen of the console. She zoomed in on Lucía's face, frozen at the exact moment she'd looked toward the black door. Her eyes said more than any words could convey.

"She's already seen something," she added.

"What matters is what she does with it."

Silence.

They both knew that at NCA, looking wasn't punished. Acting was punished. And Lucía, until now, had only observed.

But there was a glimmer in her eyes that was unsettling. It wasn't fear. It was a hunger to understand.

And that, in a place like this, could be lethal.

The screen returned to its passive surveillance mode. In the hallway, Lucía walked away, unaware that her image had been frozen, amplified, and discussed. That she had already crossed a line without intending to.

In his office, Bruno Ortega looked at the file that had just arrived, marked with a stamp that didn't usually appear in his inbox.

"Internal Monitoring – Level of Interest 2: Lucía Vega."

He frowned. He closed the document immediately.

He didn't open it. Not yet.

And yet, something stirred inside him.

Lucía. Under observation.

His first reaction was professional. Cold.

The second... not so much.

Bruno Ortega remained motionless in front of his monitor, as if the newly arrived report wasn't an alert but a condemnation. On the screen, his name appeared as the primary recipient of the confidential file. The subject: "Level of Interest 2 – Internal Monitoring: L. Vega."

He didn't need to open it. He knew exactly what it contained.

Lucía had crossed a line. Not officially. Not directly. But it was enough for someone to have noticed her lurking where she shouldn't. That, at NCA, was enough to raise suspicions and name a name.

A name that now, for him, burned on his tongue.

He ran his hand over his jaw, as if he could erase the look of concern. But the look remained.

"I could warn her. A phrase would be enough. A gesture. I could tell her to be careful where she looks... that not everything that seems harmless is. That there are doors that, once opened, can't be closed."

He imagined himself saying it. In his most neutral tone, as if it weren't personal. As if it were just another suggestion. But then he thought of her.

Of her sharp gaze. Of her cutting silence. Of her way of processing everything as if nothing could touch her.

And he hesitated.

"How would Lucía react? Would she shut down even more? Would she defend herself? Would she see me as an emissary of control? As a threat? Or worse... as someone weak?"

He couldn't allow that. Not in that place. Not with her.

The bond between them was so incipient, so fragile, that one wrong move would undo it. They still didn't trust each other. They were still caught in the precarious balance between professional respect and a tension neither of them would name.

Bruno got up from his chair and walked to the window. The city lights seemed distant, blurry. From up above, everything was foreign. Everything but her.

"What if she already knows? What if she doesn't need protection? What if warning her distances her from me more than silence?"

He sighed. Disappointed in himself.

He had made difficult decisions in his life. He had kept quiet about truths, covered up crises, carried out orders that emptied him inside. But this one-this small decision to say nothing-felt dirtier than many others.

Not because Lucía needed it.

But because, for the first time in years, he wanted to be more than functional. More than obedient.

And yet, he sat back down, closed the file without marking it as read, and let the machinery continue its course.

He didn't notice her.

Not that day.

But as he turned off the monitor, he knew he had crossed his own invisible line.